


you're always in my head

by biggayhighway



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Lazy Mornings, Love Confessions, M/M, a lot of pining, a smattering of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggayhighway/pseuds/biggayhighway
Summary: It’s nice to wake up to Callum’s soft voice or wandering hands, or if he’s very lucky, both. He knows, deep down, that he longs for forever with this man.--a friends with benefits au for @maydays2
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 3
Kudos: 68
Collections: Ballum Secret Santa 2020





	you're always in my head

**Author's Note:**

> this is my ballum secret santa gift for may!!
> 
> I really hope you like it (even though it isn't christmassy at all haha) and I hope you have a wonderful christmas this year <3

Ben can't keep doing this. It's draining the life out of him; he spends his whole day keeping up a facade around the square, the stony-faced, careless son of Phil Mitchell, and now he's pretending behind closed doors too. Lying to the people he cares about because he’s selfish and doesn’t want to let go of what they have. What Callum’s given him. 

It hadn't always been like this, they'd been friends for a little while, and then drunken nights out had morphed into drunken nights in until one evening one of them must have initiated something, because that was the start of where they are now, where Ben wishes he wasn't. 

In a way, he feels lucky, because he gets  _ this _ . He gets the quiet, rose-tinted mornings where he feels warm and safe and completely content in every sense of the word. He wouldn't get this if he didn't put up with the heartache. Sometimes, if he tries hard enough, he can pretend that they're in love, that this is their life, that they can lie there forever and not worry about a thing until they die in each other's arms. Pretending-  _ fantasising _ \- is easy, but with it comes the difficulty of snapping back to reality. A reality where Callum isn’t his. 

Callum’s flat is very quiet- Ben registers as he lies alone- tangled up in patterned sheets where he can’t really move his arm and the flesh on the underneath of both his knees is too hot. He wonders if Callum has gone out, even though it’s a Saturday and Ben thinks the sun is only just rising based on the sliver of gold light coming through the gap in the curtains. Maybe Callum’s had enough of this and done a runner. It’d certainly make Ben’s job easier. 

Then he appears, shuts the bedroom door in Ben's blurry peripheral, and climbs back into bed, a comforting weight next to Ben, a source of constant heat that Ben's cold heart and desperate soul can’t seem to get enough of. 

“Where’d you go?” Ben asks softly, barely a breath as he hums at the feeling of Callum’s hand sliding under fabric to hold Ben’s waist, turning him onto his side so that they can slot together entirely. He’s burning like parchment at Callum’s touch, and even though it hurts, he can’t get enough of the destruction. He doesn’t pick up all of what Callum replies with, mind slow and still waking up. All he’s really focusing on is how they’re pressed against each other from top to toe. 

“- get a drink.”

Ben nods once, eyes slipping shut once more as Callum pulls him closer. It feels so real. The way they touch each other, the way they intertwine like thread, mix like the liquor in a dangerous cocktail. These are the moments where Ben loses himself, sinks under the waves, pretends. He’s pictured everything in his hazy half-and-half consciousness, from kissing in streetlight after romantic dinner dates, to imagining what their wedding would be like. That had been the one to catch him out, the one that had started in a dream and then progressed as Ben had suddenly experienced an onslaught of emotion and romantic attraction towards his best friend. He stops himself by habit now whenever his mind slips to it, wonders briefly how Callum would look in a suit and tie with a ring on his finger. If he succumbs to fantasies then the tear in his heart when it all ends will only ache more. 

Ben shuts his eyes tight, because he can feel his walls coming up at the thought of letting himself hurt, letting the ache spread. He knows that normally he’d just run away, no explanation, not say a word and then mope about it when Callum gets upset that he’s just disappeared and isn’t talking to him. It sounds like a good plan, painful like a dagger to the stomach, but appealing in the long run because he doesn’t know for certain if he’d ever be able to get over Callum. Callum whose hands are so gently dragging over his skin. 

“Morning,” he hums against the soft skin on the side of Ben’s neck. It sends a shiver down his spine that Callum must feel him shiver at because he only gets pulled closer towards Callum as a result. Ben’s on the verge of slipping back under, sleeping the morning away before he has to go home and pretend that it doesn’t hurt to just look at Callum walking down the street. They’re friends first, Callum had been adamant, so Ben hopes that if how he really felt ever came to light, it wouldn’t make things weird. He’s wanted that before though, wanted more than what was given to him and then he’s suffered when it all gets taken away. 

Callum reaches over his head to fetch Ben’s hearing aid from the bedside table. As much as Ben enjoys the soft quiet, he gets that Callum wants to talk to him, and takes it from his hand carefully. It takes a little adjusting, but he gets it working, gets to hear Callum’s light breath, his gentle hum when Ben drags his foot up his shin. 

“Morning to you too,” he replies, albeit a little delayed, and completes his greeting with a yawn.

“You still tired?”

“It’s like- 4am,” Ben groans, a vast over exaggeration considering it’s becoming light outside. Callum tuts. “Why are you awake?”

“It’s not, by the way.” Callum shuffles down a little so his face fits into the crook between Ben’s neck and shoulder. Ben eases up a little at that- feels the tension in his shoulders drop instinctually so that Callum doesn’t ask him why he’s so on edge. “It’s just gone half seven. I always wake up around this time, you know that.”

Ben does, and it still doesn’t make sense to him. It’s nice to wake up to Callum’s soft voice or wandering hands, or if he’s very lucky, both. He knows, deep down, that he longs for forever with this man. 

“You’re thinking about something- something tricky- I can tell.”

Ben could laugh. Callum knows him so well, but then also not at all. Ben is sure that if Callum suspected he wanted anything more than sex he would have called him out on it. He does with everything else. Knows when he’s not all there. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Callum pulls away, and Ben feels that stab of pain right in the center of his abdomen at the distance that’s suddenly between them. He rolls onto his back as Callum props himself up on an elbow, watching him. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Ben doesn’t know what to say. He throws an arm over his eyes, just so he doesn’t have to look anywhere and he hasn’t put his glasses on yet, so it hurts his head a little when he strains to focus on anything. He lets his mouth do the work instead of forming an actual excuse. 

“Just, stuff, you know. Boring stuff.”

Callum huffs, and leans forward to press a kiss to the side of Ben’s head above his arm. It’s careful, and delicate, and Ben knows, so suddenly, that this is it. 

He gains a sudden boost, an abrupt wave of adrenaline that looks like a burst of golden light, and it fills him completely. There’s no question, no doubt anymore that he could be anything less than falling in love, and he voices it, because Callum deserves the truth if nothing else, deserves to know that Ben’s been pining over him for the past six months. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” Ben murmurs, but he knows it’s loud enough that it won’t be mistaken. He should look at Callum really, should gauge his hope by the look on his face, but he can’t bring himself to come out from behind his elbow. He’s safe where he can’t see. So he listens. 

There’s nothing to listen to. 

Callum’s breathing, maybe, which is slow once it returns from the sharp hitch that Ben had registered, which had made Ben swallow the lump in his throat that keeps forming. Callum’s not talking, not saying anything, but it’s  _ his turn.  _ Ben worries if he carries on talking that he’ll talk his way out of it in fear of losing Callum, because that’s a knife that cuts deep, the fear of being lonely now that he’s had a taste of the cure for his insufferable ache. He needs Callum to say something, anything, even if it’s him telling Ben to fuck off and never come back, because the silence is killing him slowly.

“Ben.” 

The way Callum says his name gives him butterflies still. Butterflies on top of butterflies so that Ben feels totally overwhelmed with the fluttering in his stomach. It’s something to focus on, to distract him from dreading the next words to come out of Callum’s mouth.

“Are you serious?” 

That comes unexpected, but Ben nods. He could back out, could lie if he wanted to, but he doesn’t, because he’s so  _ tired _ of lying. So tired of pretending that he’s someone he’s not. 

“Ben, would you- look at me, please?” 

It’s terrifying, coming out from the black, having to look at Callum’s  _ perfect _ face knowing that they’ll never be the same again. That something is about to change, that this could be the last time Ben will ever look him in the eyes. So he makes the most of it. 

Looking at Callum still feels like coming home. Even with an unreadable expression on his face, Ben still feels warm, and it’s blissful, but agonisingly painful at the same time. He doesn’t want to let Callum go, and now he wondered if it might have been better to keep his mouth shut. 

“How long?”

“A while.” 

“Then why didn’t you say something?” Callum asks him, and his face is breaking into a smile. He hits Ben on the chest weakly. All Ben can focus on is that grin. Callum’s so beautiful, Ben has to wonder why he ever decided to do this with  _ him. _

Ben lets out a huff of laughter, and it’s so ridiculous because he still doesn’t know where exactly Callum stands on this. 

“I didn’t want to ruin  _ this _ . With  _ you _ .”

Callum’s eyes go soft, and he reaches forward giant, gentle hands to get Ben to sit up next to him. Then, he’s screwing up the front of Ben’s t-shirt and pulling him forward, meeting where their lips touch. 

It’s so quiet. The morning is still settling in, and no one is really up yet, and it feels like the world is composed of just the two of them, like nothing else will ever matter like the way Ben gets his hands on the sides of Callum’s face and pulls him closer.

He doesn’t know what this is yet. It could still be that Callum doesn’t want anything more than this, and they’ll have to talk about it, but it’s soft and gentle and so quiet- such a contrast to his normal life, the Ben Mitchell that people see walking through the square. It’s good for him, he’s found, to have people around him that bring out who he really is. Callum’s an expert at it. 

When they pull away, Callum pulls Ben into the tightest hug, and Ben melts into it. His butterflies get a little easier to control too, as if Callum is helping him keep them away just by touching him. 

“I’ve been wondering for ages how I was gonna tell you,” Callum murmurs, muffled in the fabric on Ben’s shoulder. “Then you did it for me.” 

“What?”

“I want this- you, Ben. So much.”

And everything falls into place. Ben’s spent his entire life waiting for something, someone who loves him like he loves them, and now he’s found it. He’s finally,  _ finally _ found it. And it's Callum, who feels like his literal other half. He’s everything Ben isn’t, and though sometimes he wonders how they even became friends, let alone whatever they are now, he understands why they work so well together. Together they make a whole.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @biggayhighway


End file.
